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architecture and design magazineSun, 02 Aug 2015 20:00:09 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2White rooftops turn red during emergencies at retirement home by Guedes Cruz Architectshttp://www.dezeen.com/2015/01/25/guedes-cruz-architects-retirement-home-lisbon-white-boxes-turn-red-emergencies/
http://www.dezeen.com/2015/01/25/guedes-cruz-architects-retirement-home-lisbon-white-boxes-turn-red-emergencies/#commentsSun, 25 Jan 2015 21:00:44 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=632517Fifty-two white-topped cubes make up the residences of this retirement home near Lisbon by Guedes Cruz Architects, but a roof turns bright red if someone inside sounds the alarm (+ slideshow). The Alcabideche Social Complex provides supported living for its elderly members in an environment designed by local office Guedes Cruz Architects to offer a mixture of private and public spaces influenced by […]

]]>Fifty-two white-topped cubes make up the residences of this retirement home near Lisbon by Guedes Cruz Architects, but a roof turns bright red if someone inside sounds the alarm (+ slideshow).

The Alcabideche Social Complex provides supported living for its elderly members in an environment designed by local office Guedes Cruz Architects to offer a mixture of private and public spaces influenced by Mediterranean living.

Modular living units, each measuring 53 square metres, features cast-concrete walls, while translucent plexiglass boxes sit on top to create a smooth contrasting surface.

At night, the roofs are lit from within to create the appearance of glowing lanterns, providing ample illumination for navigating the complex without the need for additional street lighting.

The roof lighting is also linked to an emergency alarm that occupants can trigger to alert the central control station and turn the roof from white to red as a distress signal.

The site is operated by Portuguese trade union Fundação Social do Quadro Bancário, which represents the banking sector.

Each of the small houses are spread in staggered rows across a 10,000-square-metre plot that also accommodates a large support building, as well as a series of pools and public terraces.

"The Social Complex of Alcabideche aims to reconstitute a Mediterranean lifestyle in which the outdoor spaces of streets, plazas and gardens are like an extension of the house itself," said the architects in a statement.

The pathways that weave across the site are influenced by the maze-like streets of the medinas found in North African cities. They provide routes that are shaded from the sun during the day and illuminated at night by the lights of the adjacent buildings.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing allows plenty of natural light to enter each of the houses. Each one contains an open lounge, kitchen and dining space adjacent to the entrance, while a bedroom and large en-suite are situated behind a sliding door at the rear.

To keep the interiors cool during the summer, ventilation filters in through the junction between the concrete walls and white plastic roof, which also reflects the sun's rays.

In winter, solar panels power underfloor heating that warms the exposed concrete floor. A cushion of air created between the roof and the living area helps prevent warmth from escaping through the roof.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2015/01/25/guedes-cruz-architects-retirement-home-lisbon-white-boxes-turn-red-emergencies/feed/12Areal Architecten's Mayerhof retirement home wraps around two courtyardshttp://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/02/mayerhof-retirement-home-antwerp-areal-architecten/
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/02/mayerhof-retirement-home-antwerp-areal-architecten/#commentsWed, 02 Apr 2014 14:49:45 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=436698This retirement home near Antwerp was designed by Belgian studio Areal Architecten around a pair of courtyards to avoid creating identical rooms along endless rows of corridors. Areal Architecten wanted the Mayerhof Care Campus to be "a place to grow old with dignity", rather than a sequence of characterless rooms. "Such a scheme is a victory […]

]]>This retirement home near Antwerp was designed by Belgian studio Areal Architecten around a pair of courtyards to avoid creating identical rooms along endless rows of corridors.

Areal Architecten wanted the Mayerhof Care Campus to be "a place to grow old with dignity", rather than a sequence of characterless rooms.

"Such a scheme is a victory for the functionality of these buildings, but a defeat for the domesticity of it," explained architect Jurgen Vandewalle.

The three-storey complex accommodates 148 residential units within a single building, which features a plan loosely based on a figure of eight. This allowed residences to be grouped into clusters around the two courtyards.

"Each room gets either a view towards these open spaces in the heart of the nursing home or to the green area around the building," said Vandewalle.

The largest of the two courtyards is accessible to all residents, while a series of balconies and roof terraces provide accessible outdoor spaces on the upper levels.

Break-out spaces are dotted across all three floors to encourage residents to interact with their neighbours. There are also several common areas where they can dine or socialise together.

"Mayerhof Care Campus acts as a small town where functionality and domesticity merge into a fresh environment, and where social interaction, security and integration of people with different needs are in the centre," added the architect.

The architect used a combination of timber and aluminium cladding to give the building its gridded facade. While the reflective metal provides horizontal stripes, the timber sections alternate with windows in between.

Areal Architecten has also completed three separate buildings on the site, which provide assisted living for up to 40 residents with disabilities. These structures feature masonry walls with exposed concrete beams.

Pathways run across the complex in different directions and three vehicular entrances lead into different car parking areas.

Nursing homes and other social services are often interpreted according to the same pattern: countless rooms linked together by long corridors. Such a scheme is a victory for the functionality of these buildings, but a defeat for the domesticity of it. In care area Mayerhof the limits of this rational scheme are questioned, while space is created in which a community can grow. Various additions of communal and open areas add to the domesticity of the place.

By positioning the nursing home in a figure of eight on the site an infinite circulation that connects all the rooms on every floor with each other arises. In this functional diagram however, places where social interaction arises are inserted. At each corner of the figure open spaces create space for interaction. The linear corridor folds around two large voids, creating various perspectives and a sense of overview in the building.

As the program towards the upper floors is diminishing, terraces arise on every floor with an optimal orientation and protected from the wind. Each room gets either view towards these open spaces in the heart of the nursing home or to the green area around the building. The result is a very light volume that is bathed in natural light and space.

Besides nursing, three separate volumes provide assisted living, as stately sentinels overlooking the existing nursing home. Large openings with terraces located in a residential area that acts between the nursing home and the surrounding housing. All properties counting two or three facades allowing natural light to invade the living spaces are bundled with a widened corridor that houses the common functions.

The new buildings are implanted into the free space on the site around the existing nursing home, which remained in use during the works. After the demolition a green zone is liberated embraced by the new nursing home and assisted living residences. The joint residential area and the underground passage bind the different functions together. Otherwise they set themselves as autonomous parts, but live as integrated components of a unique residential care setting with a focus on lifelong living and care.

The choice for three entrances to the site, the construction of streets and indoor spaces and buildings that vary in size and appearance makes this new environment reminiscent of an urban fabric and is way different than the monotonous environments where such programs are mostly housed. The various functions dress in a different architecture. The nursing home is built in a reflective aluminium cladding used as canvas to the sunlight. The assisted living residences have a stately finish in masonry with exposed concrete ring beams.

Mayerhof Care Campus acts as a small town where functionality and domesticity merge into a fresh environment, and where social interaction, security and integration of people with different needs are in the centre. A community bound together by a rational structure, a place to grow old with dignity.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/02/mayerhof-retirement-home-antwerp-areal-architecten/feed/0Morangis Retirement Home by Vous Êtes Ici Architecteshttp://www.dezeen.com/2013/05/07/morangis-retirement-home-by-vous-etes-ici-architectes/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/05/07/morangis-retirement-home-by-vous-etes-ici-architectes/#commentsTue, 07 May 2013 07:00:16 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=314591Doors, windows and recesses are picked out in yellow ochre on the timber facade of this retirement home near Paris by French studio Vous Êtes Ici Architectes (+ slideshow). The four-storey Morangis Retirement Home was designed by Vous Êtes Ici Architectes with a Y-shaped plan that divides the interiors into three wings. Siberian larch is […]

]]>Doors, windows and recesses are picked out in yellow ochre on the timber facade of this retirement home near Paris by French studio Vous Êtes Ici Architectes (+ slideshow).

The four-storey Morangis Retirement Home was designed by Vous Êtes Ici Architectes with a Y-shaped plan that divides the interiors into three wings.

Siberian larch is arranged in vertical strips over the exterior of the building and also forms canopies across the various entrances.

The primary entrance is located at the junction of two wings and leads into the centre of the building. Additional entry points are positioned along the northern facade for service access.

The ground floor of the building is taken up by communal rooms, health facilities and staff areas. Shared dining rooms, living rooms and other social areas are grouped together around the south-east elevation and open to a private residents' garden.

Bedrooms occupy the three upper floors of the building. The first and second floors accommodate typical residents and are divided into clusters of 13 bedrooms, each with their own dining and activity room. Meanwhile, the third floor is dedicated to patients suffering from Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases.

Central corridors provide clear routes between the different sections of each floor. Rather than relying on artificial lighting, they each feature windows to bring in as much daylight as possible.

The third floor also features two roof terraces with direct access to ground level via a pair of outdoor staircases.

How could we build a socially orientated retirement home and never neglect comfort and sensorial fulfillment?

A retirement home for all

Based on an off-plan concept led by AXENTIA as a social contractor and IMMODIEZE as a private developer, the Morangis Retirement Home was constructed with financial support from the Conseil Général de l'Essone, Regional support as well as the Regional Health Agency and the town of Morangis.

The operator and tenant of the new building is an Autonomous Public Establishment that offers stays as low as €60 per day. This low and democratic offer was attained without sacrificing the quality of service or the finish of the construction.

An orientated building

The building is constructed on 4 levels and is based on a Y-shaped plan. The building occupies the site as follows:
1) The main public entrance is located where the "Y' strands connect
2) The north façade is dedicated to service, deliveries and employee's entrance
3) The south façade is generously opened towards the residents private park

The plan is organized according to a few constraints: compact, rational and open towards the outside.

The living areas as well as the main activities areas (restaurant, salon) are developed around the private gardens. These areas benefit from the view and easy dedicated access to the gardens. The gardens include therapeutically themed spaces as well as more traditional paths around flower beds and a rose garden.

The rooms on floor one and two are dedicated to classical geriatric residents, the rooms are disposed into 6 units of 13 rooms each.

The third floor is dedicated to patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease or other similar neurological disorders. The floor includes vast dedicated spaces for specialized activities, rest and well-being.

All the floors are accessible from the central node intersecting all of the buildings functions and patient units.

One of the base lines of this project is to offer, all through the construction and all its sleeping units, framed views. Each unit has a main gathering area for activities or meals as well as a smaller area placed in front of loggia or suspended gardens. All these small areas include large windows and quality framed views.

The corridors, usually blind and suffocating spaces, always include wider spaces with outside views, this allows our elders to move around at their pace towards lights and rest areas in the buildings circulations, they may easily meet and chat with fellow residents without having a difficult and stressing path to do so.

The third floor has two large terraces easily accessible to the residents. These terraces, widely orientated towards the park, are treated as a prolongation of the inner spaces.

On an individual's point of view, the building rooms were designed differently with windows offering distant views of the countryside and treated as hotel rooms more than hospital rooms. The windows all designed with a glass panel to the floor allowing bedded residents to have a view.

On the outer skin wrapping the building, openings are pierced following no specific symmetry; the sculpted facades offer various views and volumes behind the outer skin.

This envelope covering the building is made out of Siberian larch wood; these wooden boards are warm and comforting. The outer skin vibrates according to the sun and time of the day. The larch boards are top quality solid wood, they are butted together to prevent deformation and to remove defaults.

Wooden awnings extend the facades skin away from the building creating shelter from the sun and rain and protecting the ground floor's salons and restaurants.

Every time the outer skin is punched in to form a dent in the global volume this corresponds to a specific socializing space: inner rest areas widely opened towards the park or the third floors terraces. The "dents" allow the sun and the light to reach in deeply into the building for those whom have difficulties moving about. As soon as the outer skin is breached to create a volume a different material and color is used to outline these inner volumes. A warm orange to yellow coating has been applied on the outer walls exaggerating the warmth of the light. The ambiance is friendly and warm and the yellow resonates nicely with the natural warmth of wood. As a result the dynamic spaces we offer are worth the effort needed to reach by elderly people.

This bright and lively color, stimulating without being aggressive, is also the one used for the window and door frames of the facades found under the awnings and in the bedrooms. As one approaches the building and passes below the awnings towards the yellow coating, as he is welcomed, will feel and understand the building's harmony. One will easily understand how the building works and how it is connected to its natural and urban surroundings.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2013/05/07/morangis-retirement-home-by-vous-etes-ici-architectes/feed/7No Country For Old Men by Lanzavecchia + Waihttp://www.dezeen.com/2012/05/16/no-country-for-old-men-by-lanzavecchia-wai/
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/05/16/no-country-for-old-men-by-lanzavecchia-wai/#commentsWed, 16 May 2012 19:00:30 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=210722Italian-Singaporean designers Lanzavecchia + Wai have designed a collection of aids for the elderly with styling that's more domestic than medical. Called No Country For Old Men, the series includes walking canes with integrated trays, iPad stands or baskets, a chair that's easier to get out of thanks to a foot bar for tipping it […]

Italian-Singaporean designers Lanzavecchia + Wai have designed a collection of aids for the elderly with styling that's more domestic than medical.

Called No Country For Old Men, the series includes walking canes with integrated trays, iPad stands or baskets, a chair that's easier to get out of thanks to a foot bar for tipping it forward and a lamp with a magnifying screen.

Materials like wood and marble integrate the pieces in a domestic interior where their standard counterparts can feel alien outside a clinical environment.

Yves Behar recently collaborated with new brand Sabi to launch a range of medical aids to tackle the stigma of products normally associated with hospitals and nursing homes for a design-conscious ageing population. Read more in our earlier story.

No Country for Old Men - A Collection of Domestic Objects for the Elderly

The No Country for Old Men collection: Together canes, MonoLight table lamps & Assunta chair

During the Milan Design Week 2012, Lanzavecchia + Wai, a creative studio of Francesca Lanzavecchia and Hunn Wai presented No Country for Old Men, a collection of domestic objects for the elderly.

To read, to get-up, to move yourself and your possessions around, at home; the project "No Country for Old Men" is a small family of objects that is not only attentive to the daily difficulties encountered by the elderly, but also how it can finally complement our domestic living spaces and acquired laziness.

The activity spheres that exist in a home become fluid and blurred with modern living habits and mobile devices. The T, U and I-canes not only provide interstitial support to the elderly, but also allow them and modern dwellers to bring along their tea-time, a collection of magazines and books and also to prop up their iPad for viewing from the sofa or typing out an email or document.

T-Cane - the cane designed for our grandmothers to keep on carrying the tea tray.

U-Cane - the container cane that can be a magazine holder, a knitting basket or…

I-Cane - the iPad cane for the Elderly 2.0.

The aging process brings about a natural decline in muscle tone and bone density that contributes to decreased mobility, stability, strength and endurance. Actions that are taken for granted can become more difficult with age. Simply standing up from a chair is difficult for some seniors due to muscle mass and strength losses. This is aggravated by our increasingly sedentary work-and-lifestyles.

Assunta assists by appropriating the user’s own body weight as leverage by stepping on the foot bar and as well as assures stability by having arm-rests that follow this tilting motion.

Informed by contemporary choices of material and expression, both aesthetical and functional, Assunta assumes its domestic role by assisting this common action of getting up from a chair as a considered and holistic product.

MonoLight Table Lamp - a lamp that illuminates & magnifies. Eye-sight deteriorates with age and long-hours in front of the computer screen.

MonoLight is a handsome table lamp with a magnifying screen and LED components housed in a CNC-machined aluminium enclosure, anchored to a dodecagon-profiled marble base, to enable various degrees of viewing angles.

The lamp comes in both portrait and landscape models to fit the reader’s viewing preference, and to change the angle, a simple gesture of tilting the aluminium frame whilst the heft of the marble piece keeps it in the desired position.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2012/05/16/no-country-for-old-men-by-lanzavecchia-wai/feed/18House for elderly people by Aires Mateus Arquitectoshttp://www.dezeen.com/2011/02/07/house-for-elderly-people-by-aires-mateus-arquitectos/
http://www.dezeen.com/2011/02/07/house-for-elderly-people-by-aires-mateus-arquitectos/#commentsMon, 07 Feb 2011 02:00:52 +0000http://www.dezeen.com/?p=115156Architectural photographer Fernando Guerra has sent us his images of a nursing home in Alcácer do Sal, Portugal, by Portuguese studio Aires Mateus Arquitectos. The façade is reminiscent of a checkerboard, with its white surface punctured at intervals by recesses to shade its glazing. The long building meanders over the site, rising and falling with […]

The project is based on a attentive reading of the life of a very specific kind of community, a sort of a micro-society with its own rules.

It is a program, somewhere in between a hotel and a hospital, that seeks to comprehend and reinterpret the combination social/private, answering to the needs of a social life, and at the same time of solitude.

Independents unities aggregate into a unique body, whose design is expressive and clear.

The reduct mobility of those who will live in the building suggests that any displacement should be an emotive and variable experience.

The distance between the independent units is measured and drawn to turn the idea of path into life, and its time into form.

The building, designed path, is a wall that naturally rises from the topography: it limits and defines the open space, organizing the entire plot.

Name of the project: Residências assistidas em Alcácer do Sal. Houses for eldery people in Alcácer do Sal.